Community celebrates school’s 75th birthday
BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

The sign outside the Wilson School, which celebrates its 75th birthday.

SAYREVILLE — It’s been 75 years.

For parents, teachers and alumni of the Wilson School, one of the oldest educational institutions in the borough, the anniversary was cause for a special celebration. A homecoming party of sorts was held Friday night at the Dane Street school.

“When we think about the history of this building, we must also think about how it fits into the chronology of events in the history of the world, the [United States] and certainly the town,” said Georgia Baumann, principal of Wilson School. “It has survived through 75 very turbulent and event-filled years.”

The homecoming brought out nearly 200 people, from current attendees to those who remember it as Sayreville High School, which was the building’s use until 1968.

Among those in attendance were state Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who spoke to the audience. Borough Council President Frank Makransky was also on hand to present a certificate from the mayor and council honoring the school on its milestone.

A new outdoor sign welcoming students and visitors was also unveiled. Money toward the sign was raised through the school PTO and private donations.

“It’s an absolutely magnificent sign,” Baumann said. “It represents the beauty of this school.”

Ed Pytel and Josephine Samul were dubbed most senior king and queen in attendance. Pytel was a 1937 graduate, while Samul graduated in 1938.

“I was very elated to receive the crown and corsage,” said Samul, whose maiden name is Lajewski. “It took me by surprise because I didn’t think it would happen to me.”

Samul began school in 1930, the year Wilson was built.

At that time, the Sayre and Fisher Co., the clay mining organization that is the borough’s namesake, was still in business. Jesse Selover was the superintendent of schools. And there were even a few different ways in which students would commute, as Samul noted that parents of some of the school’s current students asked her if they used trolleys at the time.

“Of course there were trolleys,” she said with a laugh. “That’s how we got around.”

Baumann, who began her teaching career at Wilson in the 1960s, returning as principal in 1998, said her husband’s twin sisters, Joan and Ann, were students at the school in the ’40s.

“They even remembered their locker combinations,” she said. “I couldn’t get over that.”

Ed Kolod-ziej, another lifelong borough resident, led the flag salute at the celebration Friday. He graduated from the school in 1943, when it was the high school, and was president of its first four-year graduating class.

“Sayreville at that time was a small industrial community of approximately 7,000 people,” he said. “It was dominated by National Lead, DuPont, Hercules and clay companies.”

“We’ve become a suburban town,” Kolodziej added.

He said when Wilson first changed over to the high school, there were only 80 students in each class, with the first sophomore class spending their freshman year in South River.

He said the event Friday helped re-create a long-ago time in borough history.

“Today’s children were our guides,” Kolodziej said. Former students, guided by current students, were able to go to their old classrooms in the school, leave notes for students about when they were attending classes as well as get themselves a hearty slice of reverie in the process.

“It was a really interesting evening,” he said.

Now 80 years old, Samul still lives in Sayreville. She said both the town and the school she once attended have greatly changed.

“It’s more modern,” she said of the present-day Wilson School. “It looks very nice to me. It’s really, really clean and very nice.”

Although Kolodziej, also a lifelong resident, agreed that much of the school has changed, he said there was one thing that has remained the same.

“The one room that hasn’t changed is the cafeteria,” he said. “It couldn’t be cleaner, it really sparkles. But it was that way then, too.”